When Casting Nailed It... Examples? (Films)

JP Liz V1

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

I'm currently rewatching Reaper and am hugely enjoying Ray Wise play the devil. I recalled that the first time around watching it he was the stand out character for me. Sadly I think the show went to just two seasons before two of the main stars decided they wanted to do other things.

So any other occasions where the casting team nailed it?

Ardent wrote: »

Ray Liotta as Henry Hill in Goodfellas. A big part of that movie's greatness.

enfant terrible wrote: »

Christian Bale in American Psycho.

Studio wanted Di Caprio but Mary Harron refused to do the movie without Bale, reason been he made her laugh so much as Bateman in his audition.

Mehaffey1 wrote: »

Robert Carlisle as Begby in Trainspotting
Alan Rickman as Severus Snape in Harry Potter
Gary Oldman as Stanfield in Leon The Professional
Robert de Niro as Don Corleone in The Godfather.

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

OK, if we're doing movies as well....

- Alan Rickman as Hans in Die Hard. Bruce Willis nailed it as well though

- Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street

- Someone already mentioned Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, but Joe Pesci as Tommy (and again as Nicky in Casino)

- Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile

- Robert Redford and James Gandolfini in The Last Castle

This thread in tv forum got some great replies, I thought a film choices one would be good in a dedicated film thread in film forum, credit to Kintarō Hattor

SaltSweatSugar

Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man
Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool

Pauliedragon

Brad Pitt in Snatch.

ziedth

I think my view on this question would be that you could never see a different actor playing that Character.

So, for example Keanu Reeves is excellent in John Wick is perfect playing the part but I could imagine a number of other people cast too.

Best example I can think of is Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds

JP Liz V1

SaltSweatSugar wrote: »

Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man
Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool

And to think how hard it was for RDJ to get taken on at that time by any studio and now he is the man

Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, an unknown outside of Oz but amazing in that role

Matt Damon as Jason Bourne

otnomart

Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin
Willem Defoe as Vincent Van Gogh

The Harry Potter movies had great casting for the adult roles.
(Just think if they got American actors instead...).
Thankfully they got great British (and Irish) actors.

Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus in the Gladiator.

Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Departed.

RobbingBandit

Robert De Nero in Goodfellas

James Woods as Hades in Hercules

Sean Bean as Ned Stark

Maria de Medeiros as Fabienne (Butch's girlfriend) in Pulp Fiction.

Charles Ingles

Arnie in the terminator.
Nobody else could have done this role

Littlehorny

Viggo Mortensen in Lord of the Rings.

Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men.

Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad.

Harrison Ford as Han Solo.

correction

Emile Hirsch in Into the Wild

Paul Dano in There Will be Blood

Ryan Gosling in Drive

Ed Norton in American History X

Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs

Heath Ledger in Lords of Dogtown

Jack Black in School of Rock

Sylvester Stallone in Rocky

Jake Gyllenhaal in Donnie Darko

Colin Farrell in Phone Booth

Gary Oldman in The Professional

Adrien Brody in Detachment

I could go on forever but I'll stop there.

Zorya

Funny how people mostly remember male actors. Was thinking which females?
Over the top dramatics seem to come to mind...

Glenn Close in 101 Dalmations (She is very good in The Wife on Netflix now).
Anjelica Huston in The Addams Family (Thought it wasn't a good casting in The Dead in my opinion)
Tilda Swinton - The White Witch, but then she usually seems to occupy any role so thoroughly that one could not imagine another doing it.


Carole Lombard in Gone With The Wind
Juliette Binoche in Chocolate
Meryl Streep Sophie's Choice
Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine and Hideous Kinky...but I did not think she was well cast in Titanic

Okay, gonna stop now. There are too many.

Tony EH

Robert De Niro in 'Taxi Driver'
Klaus Kinski in 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God'
Louise Fletcher in 'One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest'
Heath Ledger in 'The Dark Knight'
Daniel Day-Lewis in 'My Left Foot'
Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby in 'Dredd'
Alan Rickman in 'Die Hard'
Kevin Spacy in 'The Usual Suspects'
Sigourney Weaver in 'Alien'
Michael Rooker in 'Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer'
Tom Hardy in 'Bronson'
Kathy Bates in 'Misery'
Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining'
Christopher Lee in 'Dracula'
Vivien Leigh in 'Gone with the Wind'
Clint Eastwood in 'Dirty Harry'
Ian McKellen in 'The Lord of the Rings'
Sean Penn in 'Carlito's Way'

El Duda

Martin Clunes as Gary Strang

Goodshape

Tony EH wrote: »

Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining'

Never liked that casting. He looked like Crazy Jack Nicholson from the outset. When he started flipping out it just felt like yeah, Crazy Jack's gonna crazy!


But great casting – Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Also Louise Fletcher in the same film. And Danny DeVito, Brad Dourif, and Christopher Lloyd were pretty spot-on too.

DaeryssaOne

correction wrote: »

Jack Black in School of Rock

While I do find him quite annoying and not the most all-round of actors, he is so absolutely perfect in that role I genuinely couldn't think of anybody else playing that character, it's just made for him.

My one would be Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam and Mrs Doubtfire, so hard to picture anybody else in these roles

blue note

Charles Ingles wrote: »

Arnie in the terminator.
Nobody else could have done this role

Apparently OJ Simpson was considered but they decided that since he was an all American hero he wouldn't have been believable as a killer.....

bullpost

Dennis Hopper - Blue Velvet

Audrey tautou - Amelie

Orson Welles - Harry Lime

Michael J Fox - Back to the Future

Nicolas Cage - Raising Arizona

Cryptopagan

Goodshape wrote: »

But great casting – Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Also Louise Fletcher in the same film. And Danny DeVito, Brad Dourif, and Christopher Lloyd were pretty spot-on too.

I think Dourif and Fletcher are even better than Nicholson in that movie.

Dades

Jeff Bridges as The Dude!
Who else could ever have done it?

Aragorn, Gandalf in LOTRs.
They needed to, and did anchor those movies.

Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent in the HHGTTG movie.
That movie was flawed but captured the tone perfectly.

***

Honourable mention to Bruce the robot shark in Jaws. His failure to perform was instrumental in the movie being an all time classic.

facehugger99

For me this question makes more sense if the movie is based on a source material that you have previously read and formed a view of the characters, then an actor come along and perfectly captures or even exceeds the idea that you already had in your head.

Kathy Bates in Misery is one that springs to mind immediately - I really loved the book and she perfectly captures the deranged, super-fan Wilkes character that I had pictured.

Obviously Ian McKellen from LOTR.

Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest probably doesn't count. even though I'd read the book before I'd seen the film, I was probably aware it was Nicholson and my mind may have super-imposed him over the Murphy character. Even so - it's a fantastic book that everyone should read, so I'm mentioning it.

RobbingBandit

Jim Carrey as Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon

irish_goat

Alan Rickman as Snape.

otnomart

otnomart wrote: »

The Harry Potter movies had great casting for the adult roles.

Imelda Staunton as Umbridge was absolutely perfect. My fist curls every time she makes a sound. :P

Charles Ingles

RobbingBandit wrote: »

Jim Carrey as Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon

He was terrible in the Kaufman role, over acted through the whole movie.
Kaufman was fair more subtle than Carey's portrayal
The actor doing Tony Clifton was good though

Addle

Child actors can be great.
I’m thinking Abigail Breslin in little miss sunshine, Macaulay Culkin in home alone and Mara Wilson in Matilda, Leonardo di capris in A Boys Life.
Whoever cast them first had great prudence.

SaltSweatSugar

Tony EH wrote: »

Robert De Niro in 'Taxi Driver'
Klaus Kinski in 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God'
Louise Fletcher in 'One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest'
Heath Ledger in 'The Dark Knight'
Daniel Day-Lewis in 'My Left Foot'
Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby in 'Dredd'
Alan Rickman in 'Die Hard'
Kevin Spacy in 'The Usual Suspects'
Sigourney Weaver in 'Alien'
Michael Rooker in 'Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer'
Tom Hardy in 'Bronson'
Kathy Bates in 'Misery'
Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining'
Christopher Lee in 'Dracula'
Vivien Leigh in 'Gone with the Wind'
Clint Eastwood in 'Dirty Harry'
Ian McKellen in 'The Lord of the Rings'
Sean Penn in 'Carlito's Way'

Definitely Heath Ledger as Joker, he played that part perfectly. Also Karl Urban in Dredd was amazing. Especially as he was adamant about not taking off the helmet.

bladespin

Tony EH wrote:

Clint Eastwood in 'Dirty Harry'

Beat me to it: abdolute bullseye for the role.

Christopher Walken in, well, any movie he's in. Ownership.

Sorry about that

Will Ferrell in Elf.

is_that_so

Margaret Hamilton in the Wizard of Oz

Stop moaning ffs

Viggo Mortensen and Ian Mckellan In Lord of the Rings are both perfectly cast.

touts

Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct!

Cetyl Palmitate

Yalitza Aparicio in Roma

Quandary

Sam Rockwell was amazing in Moon.

Robert Patrick as the T1000 in T2. I can't imagine a better antagonist.

Samuel L Jackson was flawlessly cast as Jules Pulp Fiction. Honourable mention to John Travolta as Vincent.

Jack Nicholson as the joker in original Batman

So many more I can't think of right now.

timthumbni

Joaquin Phoenix in Joker. I know it isn’t out yet but I am sticking my neck out and saying he will be epic.

Otherwise Tim robbins in shawshank and that Spanish guy in Pan’s Labyrinth that plays the army captain.

topmanamillion

Jaoquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash
Jack Nicholson as Randle Patrick McMurphy in One Flew over the cuckoo's nest.
Arnie in the first terminator film

To be fair I think great actors make the part not the other way around. Saying that its hard to imagine another actor playing the likes of Harry Callahan.

walshb

Eastwood on the Spaghettis..

Patser

Robert Shaw as Quint in Jaws (also honourable mentions to Dreyfuss, Scheider and Murray Hamilton as the mayor)

RasTa

Ronald Lee Ermey - Gunnery Sergeant Hartman

banie01

Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck in Dune.

Terrible movie, but he is exactly how I imagine Gurney everytime I read the books.
Brash, verbose and Shakespearean

TerrorFirmer

Leslie Nielsen in 'The Naked Gun'.

BailMeOut

Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.

Peatys

bullpost wrote: »

Michael J Fox - Back to the Future

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt_j78zftkg

Sandor Clegane

hugh jackman as wolverine.

Charles Ingles

John Wayne in the Quite Man

SaltSweatSugar

Tommy Wiseau as Johnny in The Room

But seriously, Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-n-Furter in Rocky Horror
Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing
David Bowie in Labyrinth
Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice
Kathy Bates in Misery

I’m sure there are many more I haven’t thought of.

Keplar240B

correction wrote: »

Emile Hirsch in Into the Wild

Paul Dano in There Will be Blood

Ryan Gosling in Drive

Ed Norton in American History X

Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs

Heath Ledger in Lords of Dogtown

Jack Black in School of Rock

Sylvester Stallone in Rocky

Jake Gyllenhaal in Donnie Darko

Colin Farrell in Phone Booth

Gary Oldman in The Professional

Adrien Brody in Detachment

I could go on forever but I'll stop there.

Such a classic actor.

Mam of 4

Sigourney Weaver in Alien /Aliens .

Linda Hamilton in the Terminator films .

Charles Ingles

Paul Hogan as Mick Dundee